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Tuesday, October 31, 2006

I found a page with the specification for the HMS Incomparable design project on Bob Henneman's site. The basic concept was for a 1000ft-long ship with 6-20in guns and a good speed. I tried to implement that in Springsharp, but was not very successful for a number of reasons. One is that Springsharp would only give a speed of 29 knots for a little over 180,000 SHP. Another was the due to the shallow draft, I had to greatly increase the displacement, which only made the powering situation worse. This is the Springsharp report, for what it is worth:

Monday, October 30, 2006

John Roberts, in his Battlecruisers book, has the specifications for the design studies for a fast battleship to be built in 1915 or 1916. The ship would have been the length of the Renown, with a greater beam, but an extremely shallow draft. That was to reduce the risk of torpedo attack. The armament was 8-15in and 12-5in guns. The armour basis was 10in. I gave the ship a 3in deck armour, as the deck armour was not specified. 3in may have been greater than the design was actually given. When I implemented Design A in Springsharp, I had to increase the displacement to achieve an adequate strength. This is the Springsharp report:

Saturday, October 28, 2006

The E2 design study from 1913 is interesting, as an example of a 9.2in gun armoured cruiser with a good speed. There are no dimensions, just a displacement and weights, in the specifcation in D. K. Brown's book, The Grand Fleet (1999). These are the specified weights:

Friday, October 27, 2006

Design E would have been a very good ship, as were some of the earlier versions. Design E had a 9in armour basis and had a maximum speed of 25 knots. The armament was the usual 8-12in guns and 16-4in QF guns. Design E would have been more costly, as the design displacement was 21,400 tons. This is the Springsharp report:

Thursday, October 26, 2006

The 21 November 1906 version of Design B for the GB/CB/1907 battlecruiser was extremely well-protected. The lower belt was 10in thick. The other characteristics are the same, with a speed of 24.5 knots. This is so much better than the Indefatigable that we have a hard time understanding why the 1907-1908 battlecruisers were not built to this design. This design was proteced on a similar scale to the German Von der Tann. This is the Springsharp report:

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

I had no difficulty in making Design B for the GB/CB/1907 ship work in Springsharp. This is so much better than the Indefatigable, that you have to wonder why they built that ship, when they could have done better. Design B has a 9in armour basis, although only a 24.5-knot speed. The ship, of course, has 8-12in BLR and 16-4in QF guns. The boilers are coal-fired and the ship is propelled by turbines. This is the Springsharp report:

Tuesday, October 24, 2006

I thought that I would make another attempt at making the Design "X4" fast battleship specification work in Springsharp. John Roberts has the summary specification on page 26 of his Battlecruisers book. This is basically the Dreadnought, with the size increased so that 25 knots is possible. This is the Springsharp report:

Monday, October 23, 2006

The initial plan was to build a battlecruiser in 1912 to go with the battleships to be built. In the event, only the four battleships were built, with a fifth funded by Malaya. This is my concept of what a battlecruiser laid down in 1912, with 8-15in BLR and 16-6in QF guns, with a 9in armour basis and a 29 knot speed might be like:

Sunday, October 22, 2006

I just ran a design study in Springsharp for a GB/CB/1908 battlecruiser. I wanted to use something like the better data that was erroneously reported in Jane's Fighting Ships, with an 8in belt. This came out better than I expected, so I wondered if I did something wrong that I am not recognizing?:

Friday, October 20, 2006

This is my design study for a British 1905 battlecruiser with 8-12in guns, 16-4in QF guns, and a 25.5 knot speed. The armour basis is 6in with a 2in deck. The main issue is caused by Springsharp requiring too much power to reach 25.5 knots (over 50,000 SHP). I used turbine machinery with direct drive and coal-fired boilers. This is the Springsharp report:

Thursday, October 19, 2006

In trying the British battlecruiser design studies with reciprocating engines and coal-fired boilers, I noticed that Springsharp attributed heavier machinery weight to the reciprocating engines than was actually the case. I also have already noted that Springsharp required over 50,000 ihp to reach 25.5 knots, while the actual design studies were just over 40,000 ihp. I suspect that part of the reason is that my Springsharp designs were heavy, in order to achieve adequate hull strength. I let the weights given by John Roberts drive what I was trying to achieve in Springsharp. Because of the higher power requirements, that meant that I needed lighter machinery to have near the specified machinery weight of about 3,500 tons.

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

On page 21 of John Roberts' book, Battlecruisers, he has sketches of the various designs considered for the first battlecruisers, built as armoured cruisers. He shows the original concept for Design A, from January 1905, that is much more reasonable than what is in British Battleships. The design has a ram bow and only two levels. This is the Springsharp report:

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

The 1905 British battlecruiser "Design A" was to have a low quarterdeck and a raised forecastle above the middle of the ship. There were two turrets next to each other on the forecastle, with two turrets aft, one superfiring. The 25.5 knot speed with reciprocating engines and coal-fired boilers makes the design difficult to implement in Springsharp. Part of the problem is that Springsharp wants over 50,000 ihp to reach 25.5 knots,not 41,000 ihp. The specification is very sketchy. I followed the specification in John Robert's battlecruiser book, and used the sketch in Dr. Oscar Parkes' British Battleship book to judge the belt length. I tried to achieve the weights in the specification in John Roberts' book. This is the Springsharp report:

Monday, October 16, 2006

This version of the HMS Unapproachable differs from what I have been doing in having reciprocating engines, rather than turbines. This version also has coal-fired boilers. I have tried to achieve the weights in the specification, but there is an issue in that it takes more than 40,000 ihp to reach 25.5 knots, with Springsharp. I punted on the armament layout, and assume the 9.2in guns are all on the same level. The 4in QF guns are mounted above them, in casemates. This is the Springsharp report:

Sunday, October 15, 2006

Along with the heavily-armed battleship design from the senior officers' course in 1902, John Roberts has a less complete description of the lightly-armed battleship design, which was the alternative to the former. Naturally, I wanted to try that ship in Springsharp, as well. I had less to go on, but I made an attempt, anyway. This is the Springsharp report:

Saturday, October 14, 2006

On page 15 of John Robert's book, Battlecruisers (about British battlecruisers), he has the high-level specification for a heavily-armed battleship and a lightly-armed battleship that were used in the "Senior Officers' War Course, January 1902". There are no dimensions, just a displacement, speed, armament, and armour. I extrapolated from that description to create a Springsharp design:

Friday, October 13, 2006

I have not tried to look closely at how Springsharp determines how survivable a ship is. I like the fact that relatively lightly armoured ships have what I would consider to be good survivability ratings. A ship with better protection, such as the fast battleship version of the Super Lion concept has very good survivability. I guess that the more lightly protected ships still show a good resistence to torpedo attack, even if the number of large caliber hits is not that large. Even the Super Lion fast battleship will only take 32.9 15in hits, but will resist up to 7.6 torpedoes. I guess that 8 torpedoes would sink the ship, while it might survive 7 hits, just barely. The GB/CA/1921d design will still resist 4.3 torpedoes, and 77.8 1oin hits. The GB/CA/1921d design only has a 5in belt, but does have a 3in deck, as does the Super Lion fast battleship. They both do have a 2in torpedo bulkhead, so that they are relatively well-protected by 1905 to 1921 standards. By 1939, typical practice for large armoured ships was to have much thicker torpedo bulkheads.

Thursday, October 12, 2006

The current version of the Ross-Gowan's Springsharp program seems to have limited ability to describe the vertical position of turrets. This is a significant issue for Colonel Cuniberti's "Ideal Battleship", described in a seminal article in the 1903 Jane's All the World's Fighting Ships. The gun layout is very typical of Colonel Cuniberti's Italian designs that were actually built, particularly the Roma class. There is this diagrammatic drawing that I drew in April 2005:

There are also some photos, of varying quality, that I put together, as well:

Here is a shot from a higher elevation, from a distance:

Here is a photo from the port quarter:

The design has four twin 12in turrets and four single 12in turrets. There are also 12-12pdr QF guns in a battery below the forecastle level, but amidships. The 12in belt is complete, also in the Continental style of the period. The speed was to be a very great 24 knots. In Springsharp, the way I have been describing the 12in gun turret positions is not working well, as there are recoil and stability issues, when the layout really should work. The problem is with the concept of how Springsharp describes superfiring guns. If the upper 12in wing turrets are desribed as superfiring, there is a problem. Does anyone have a suggested solution?

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

I thought that I would make another attempt to do the Super Lion as a fast battleship in Springsharp. I have this rather large set of dimensions mind, and the ship demands the use of lightweight machinery (31.7 SHP/ton, which is asking a lot for 1912). You may or may not recall that this is a 30-knot ship with 10-15in guns. The fast battleship version needs a 13in lower belt. This is the photo of the Super Lion with the large dimensions:

The modern computative approach to calculating the power that is needed to move a ship at a certain speed uses a database of ships and then interpolates from the known values. In the past, to get a rough idea of the power required, the British navy used an empirical formula. They knew that they would need to do model trials to get a better power figure and to be able to generate a tentative power-speed curve. A third approach, developed by David Taylor, was to look up values from graphs from The Speed and Power of Ships, and then generate the data to provide a power curve. The U.S. Navy apparently had classified factors that they used to improve the results from the Taylor calculations, based on hull form. I have a program that runs in a game engine scripting language (which is unfortunate), that uses some data that both summarizes and extends what is in The Speed and Power of Ships. I also use, on the advice of Frank Fox, friction data from Gertler's book, A Reanalysis of the Original Test Data for the Taylor Standard Series (1954). This page has a picture of Morton Gertler with towing model of the submarine Albacore.

Tuesday, October 10, 2006

I don't know if this qualifies as "Super Fast", but I have a Springsharp design for the "Super Fast" battlecruiser that can make 36 knots. The machinery is 41.8 SHP/ton. This is trying to be faithful to the original sketch design from 18 July 1973. I took the liberty of increasing the draft from 29.7ft to 30ft, and the Standard displacement is a bit more than the original 32,000 tons. I had hoped for, can you believe it, 52 knots! I know now that was based on erroneous extrapolation from speed and power curves. This is the Springsharp report:

While I did not conceive of the GB/CB/1905 design, I have evidently bought into the basic concept: accept light protection and just a few guns, in exchange for very high speed (in excess of 32 knots). My ultimate expression of the concept was designed in 1973, when I conceived of what I optimistically called the "Super Fast Battlecruiser". The idea was to have a short citadel, 4-17in guns, and maybe an 8 inch lower belt. The ship had "soft ends", similar to the "all-or-nothing" ships, except that the lower belt was thicker than the upper belt (I believe). This is a photo of one of the "Super Fast Battlecruisers" steaming at moderate speed:

Monday, October 09, 2006

The GB/CA/1921d design is only viable with extremely lightweight machinery. The machinery is 39.6 SHP/ton. The ship is heavier than the original Standard displacement of 24,500 tons. The ship ended up at 27,287 tons Standard. The armament is 9-10in BLR, 12-5.5in QF, and 6-4.7in AA guns. The speed is great, at 37 knots. This is the Springsharp report:

Sunday, October 08, 2006

The Ger/CB/1911 was so over-specified, when I made the specification in 1971, that the ship easily uses coal-fired boilers and is still a very capable ship, except for being under-armed. The ship is 750ft x 100ft x 30ft, with 6-12in guns in triple turrets, forward. The secondary armament is an inadequate 8-6in QF guns in shields. The side armour is 6in with a thick 5in deck. The turret faces and barbettes are 8in thick. The torpedo bulkhead is 2in. The speed is 30 knots, with a cruising speed of 18 knots for a range of 10,000 miles. This is the Springsharp report:

Saturday, October 07, 2006

By concept for a 1905 British armoured cruiser that uses coal-fired boilers has 12-9.2in guns arranged in the lozenge pattern. There is one turret at each end, and two turrets on each beam. The secondary armament consists of 12-4in QF guns in casemates on the upper deck, with four elevated one level above that. The speed is aggressive for the time, with 26 knots. The armour basis is 6in with a 2in deck. The turret faces and barbettes are 7in. The machinery, while lightweight, is just 22.4 SHP/ton. This is the Springsharp report:

Friday, October 06, 2006

This is my attempt at the HMS Unapproachable design with 4-9.2in, 12-7.5in, and 12-4in QF guns, with coal-fired boilers. To make this work requires pretty lightweight machinery. The speed is agressive at 25.5 knots. The armour basis is 6in with a 2in deck. This is the photo of one of these ships:

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About Me

I spent 11 years on active duty in the navy. Half was as an enlisted man and half as an officer. My Dad had interested me in the navy and ships, when I was young. I found that I was attracted to doing research, regardless of topic, although much of that research has been in the fields of naval and military history. My Dad was also an artist, and got me drawing and painting since I was three. Much of my work consists of portraits of military and naval historical figures, as well as ships and tanks.